Navigating the Labyrinth of Mental Health During a Pandemic
This article is featured in the 2020 Freshman special issue.
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This article is featured in the 2020 Freshman special issue.
This article is featured in the 2020 Freshman special issue.
This article is featured in the 2020 Freshman special issue.
This article is featured in the 2020 Freshman special issue.
This article is featured in the 2020 Freshman special issue.
Dear ’24s,
This spring, the Black Lives Matter movement swept across the United States and the world. Millions of Americans attended protests, donated money, posted on social media and signed petitions. According to several recent polls, Black Lives Matter is now the largest movement in our country’s history.
Sophomore summers are usually filled with idle days spent swimming in the Connecticut River and long nights spent trying yet another flavor at Ice Cream Fore-U. The summer provides a unique opportunity for Dartmouth students to enjoy the beauty of New England while bonding as a class. This year — with the Class of 2022 spread out across the globe amidst a global pandemic — is noticeably different.
When Dartmouth Ph.D. student Maha Hasan Alshawi went on a hunger strike in protest of the College’s handling of her allegations of harassment and retaliatory academic action by two computer science professors, other Dartmouth students supported her in various ways, including through public sit-ins, a petition and hashtags on social media. Hunger strikes, like Alshawi’s, have a long and robust history on college campuses.
As summer trades its torrid weather for fall’s “maturing sun,” big decisions loom in the air regarding the future at the College. As anticipation builds up, we look within our community as well as outside it to find overlapping issues, from COVID-19 to systemic racism, all chipping away at our complacency. While it seems like we are approaching a boiling point, we also find ourselves asking: could this crisis present us with opportunities?
Without a single reported case of COVID-19, Hanover’s Kendal Retirement Community has been lucky in avoiding the reach of the pandemic so far. But with thousands of Dartmouth undergraduates soon to be returning to campus from all over the country and world — some likely to be traveling from infection hotspots — the possibility of spread to the town and to other vulnerable Upper Valley communities like Kendal has become a source of uneasiness.
When the influenza in 1918 caused Dartmouth to cancel student activities and postpone classes for two weeks, Clifford Orr, Class of 1922, wrote to his father that “the epidemic has killed what college life there was.”
The first time I played pong was during my freshman spring in the basement of Chi Gam. My partner was a Dartmouth senior, a Chi Gam member and a would-be Masters finalist. He was also my UGA. Thinking back, there was probably no better introduction to the illustrious game of Dartmouth pong. Unless, of course, I had learned in a sorority. But sororities hadn’t been marketed to me as open spaces, I didn’t know any sorority members and for some reason I was thrilled to be invited into a male space.
On June 29, Dartmouth announced its plan for a partial reopening in the coming terms, which includes a decreased student body in residence, a mix of virtual and in-person classes and restrictions on where students can and cannot go. Due to these limitations, some students are considering gap years, hoping to be on campus only when Dartmouth is closer to normal.
Ever since the College announced its reopening plan for the 2020-21 academic year, it feels like we’ve been sent into a tailspin. The emails from the Office of Institutional Research are still languishing in our inboxes, as we frantically attempt to draw a full picture of the undergraduate student body: Who will be on campus in the fall, winter and spring? What will life look like on the “Hanover Plain”? How will our D-Plans morph around our priority terms?
As the College gears up for fall term, student groups are adjusting their operations to a new campus reality. Whether service or performance based, clubs face challenges in adapting to COVID-19 restrictions and to the hybrid format of an in-person and remote fall term.
Lately, I have spent more time than ever before thinking about the future — not just my individual plans, but what the concept of the future means. As a history major and art history minor, my mind is usually focused on the past. These historical perspectives are perpetually useful for understanding the present moment, even the “unprecedented” present moment we face today. Recently, I have been trying to translate my inclination to ask and answer the question, “How did we get here?” into the question, “Where are we going?”
As the Black Lives Matter movement gains increased momentum across the country, few Dartmouth students have kept silent. Social media has become a powerful player in the movement as a tool both to educate and organize.
We all know their names — Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner — and the list goes on for far too long. We mourn the loss of those whose lives were unjustly cut short, and condemn the systemic racism that riddles American culture, institutions and politics. But the recent wave of protests and activism suggests that now is not just a time for grievance — it’s a time for action.
News coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement has shown scenes of peaceful marching as well as looting and burning during protests. The Dartmouth sat down with history professor Matthew Delmont to discuss the history and background behind the various types of responses to racial injustice.